AGAWAM – Keynote speaker Peter H. Lappin had a special message for the hundreds of people who braved the heat Monday afternoon to attend the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Massachusetts Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Agawam.

“You are here today because you care, and that is the greatest thing we can do for our fallen veterans and our heroes,” said Lappin, a former state representative representing Springfield and a former member of the Governor’s Council who served in the Army with the 101st Airborne from 1961 to 1964.

Lappin urged his audience to further serve the fallen by taking their responsibilities as citizens seriously and paying close attention to issues surrounding the 2012 elections. But he was careful not to equate politics with war.

“And those who would elevate it to that station should be reproached,” Lappin said.

Angela M. Grout, owner of Agawam Flower Shop, 430 Main St., said she gave out 1,500 flowers — 1,000 carnations and 500 roses — Monday between the town’s parade and ceremonies at the cemetery. She’d been handing flowers out at the parade for years. But this year, she was contacted by a charity called Memorial Day Flowers that hands out flowers at national and state veterans cemeteries with a special focus on Arlington National Cemetery. Memorial Day Flowers provided Grout with 500 roses for the event.

“It’s to say thank you to the community and to the veterans especially,” Grout said.

That includes the father and two uncles of Susan L. Haas. Haas served as an Army medic during the Vietnam War, although she was never stationed in Vietnam. She attended Monday’s ceremony with her husband, Kenneth C. Haas, who served as a heavy equipment operator in the Air Force at Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam. They live in Granville.

Haas remembered getting a hostile reception traveling home through an airport in California.

“They told us just to keep going and get on our plane,” Haas said. “At least now when service members return home they are well received and are welcomed home.”